It came as a shock to many supporters of FC Barcelona when it looked as if Barça management was at loggerheads with their star goal keeper over an agreement to extend his contract beyond 2010, when it was due to expire.
Eventually negotiations between FC Barcelona and the manager of Victor Valdes broke down entirely, with the club’s president insisting that he would only speak to Valdes directly, with the aim of resolving the standoff.
Valdes is every inch Barcelona, and it is difficult to imagine the squad without him. Highly opinionated, he is a real force to be reckoned with both as goalie and as third team captain, behind Puyol and Xavi.
The good news is that the dispute is over and an extended contract agreed. Victor Valdes is now contracted to play for Barcelona until 2014, where he believes he will finish his playing career aged 32.
Valdes career as first team keeper is curious; brought up in the Barcelona youth system he had been in the main squad since 2002/03. He’d joined the club in 1992, although moved with his family to Tenerife for three years. Initially Barcelona had bought Rustu Recber as keeper for the 2003/04 season – the year that Laporta took over and brought in Frank Rijkaard as coach – but for a variety of reasons he was not up to the job and so it was Victor Valdes who played in goal for the 2003/04 season.
Valdes won the Zamora Trophy, awarded to the best goalkeeper in Spain, in 2004/05, but perhaps his real moment of glory was in the Champions League win of 2005/06 when he won a lot of fans thanks to two fantastic point-blank saves from Arsenal’s Thierry Henry.
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